Summary Of This Boy's Life By Tobias Wolff

Throughout a child's life, they seek to find an identity, a sense of self that fits their personality, thoughts, and desires. This is exactly what Toby, the boyhood version of author Tobias Wolff, does in This Boy's Life. As he goes through childhood and adolescence, he exhibits different personas that he feels fit his personality. However, due to his abusive living conditions, these personas are always focused on striving for independence and escape. Toby tries to escape his life of abuse by being a frontiersman, an adventurer, and a prep, each time realizing they do not represent him, and returning back to whence he came. Since Toby is abused and neglected his entire childhood, his escape attempts begin early. When he is just in grade

This time though, his escape plan is more real than when he was younger, largely due to the fact that he was now older and more capable. Wolff outlines it for the reader later in the story: "...my purpose, which was to run away to Alaska. ...I would send for my mother. It was not hard to imagine our reunion in my cabin: her grateful tears and cries of admiration at the pelt-covered walls, the racks of guns, the tame wolves dozing beside the fire." (155) Like the frontiersman ideal, this adventurer image Toby pursues is one in which he is strong enough to deal with his demons, yet escapes anyway, because that is all he knows to do. The adventurer image is especially evident in the imagery used of guns, pelts, and wild animals. However, once again, Toby failed when it was time to implement his plan. Instead of saving his money, he spent it all and ended up going home with Dwight. Not only did Toby fail to strike out as an adventurer, he also went right back to a situation he knew was awful. As a result, it could be said that Toby failed to change at all. In a way, he was back at the same spot as he was when he first came to Utah: an abused

Instead of a rough-and-tumble man, Geoffrey is a prep school kid who, through polite and intelligent work, works his way through Princeton and into a promising career. Toby latches onto the idea of living the life of his brother; a life of luxury and comfort, in which he is given the tools and environment needed to succeed. Much later, after he gains acceptance to The Hill School, he begins to see that he may actually escape Dwight this time. When he is being fitted for his new wardrobe in Seattle, this begins to set in: "He [Toby] took a step back, stuck his hands in his pockets, threw back his shoulders and cocked his head. There was a dash of swagger in his pose, something of the stage cavalier, but his smile was friendly and hopeful." (276) Not only is he on the path to attending The Hill, but he also begins to physically look like it, something he may never have thought would happen. However, once again, his escape is unsuccessful. While Toby does make it to Hill, he ends up being released from the school due to behavioral and academic problems. This is in many ways his most profound failure. It proves that he really and truly is the same misbehaving child that he was back in Utah, unable to survive in a real